More On McGinn's Gender Problem

Mayor Mike McGinn claims we got the facts wrong on the gender breakdown of his cabinet. We didn't.

Mayor Mike McGinn was on KUOW this afternoon disputing a post I wrote about the paucity of women in his cabinet—namely, that his administration has significantly fewer women (seven, as opposed to 13) in cabinet-level positions than his predecessor, Greg Nickels, did at the end of his own first term, in 2005. (McGinn's opponent Ed Murray mentioned the incumbent's gender-equity issue during his victory speech last night so it was a morning radio topic).

McGinn campaign aide Aaron Pickus and his campaign consultant John Wyble, tells me McGinn actually has appointed nine women to cabinet-level positions, plus his spokeswoman, Beth Hester, and his chief of staff, Julie McCoy. (On his blog, Wyble calls the claims about lacking women in top spots "a charge with no basis in reality.")

As I said in the comments on my original post, an apples-to-apples comparison between department heads under Nickels and McGinn shows clearly that McGinn's cabinet has seven women to Nickels' 13. (The Nickels cabinet had 24 members total, compared to McGinn's 23, because of the elimination of the Office of Policy and Management, which was headed by a woman, Mary Jean Ryan.) Five of those seven women are McGinn appointees; the other two are holdovers from the Nickels administration.

Put another way, Nickels' 24-member cabinet was 46 percent men, 54 percent women. McGinn's 23-member cabinet is 70 percent men, 30 percent women. And none of the city's seven largest departments—Police, Fire, Parks, Transportation, City Light, Utilities, Health, and Seattle Center—is currently headed by a women. The heads of larger departments tend to make more money: In 2011, for example, the head of the fire department, Gregory Dean, made $173,000, while the head of the finance department, Beth Goldberg, made $140,000.

(In 2010, the Seattle Women's Commission took the unusual step of imploring McGinn to hire more women, noting that the shortage of female leaders at the city "is surprising and disappointing considering Seattle is a city filled with so many exceptional women leaders in the business, non-profit and government fields.")

As for Hester and McCoy: Hester, as a spokeswoman, doesn't have a cabinet-level position. McCoy, as a key advisor, is more debatable: McGinn created a powerful position for her, chief of staff, after he was elected, but she doesn't head a city department. And even if we counted McCoy, that's still eight women in top positions, as opposed to 13 under his predecessor.

"The mayor hires based on qualifications," says McGinn campaign consultant John Wyble.

We have a call out to the mayor himself.

Here are Nickels' and McGinn's appointees. Women's names are noted in bold.